Pages

We all have a tendency to believe in "Murphy's Law": that everything we do will turn out wrong. Jean Claude has an intere...

2/28/2013

We all have a tendency to believe in "Murphy's Law": that everything we do will turn out wrong. Jean Claude has an interesting story about precisely that feeling.

A man was quietly eating his breakfast. Suddenly, the piece of bread that he had just spread with butter fell to the ground. Imagine his surprise when he looked down and saw that it had landed buttered side up! The man thought he had witnessed a miracle. Excited, he went to tell his friends what happened, and they were all amazed; because when a piece of bread falls on the floor, it nearly always lands buttered side down, making a mess of everything.

'Perhaps you're a saint', said one friend, 'and this is a sign from God'

Soon the whole village knew, and they all started discussing the incident: How was it that, against all expectations, the man's slice of bread had fallen buttered side up? Since no one could come up with a credible answer, they went to see a teacher who lived nearby and told him the story.

The teacher requested that he be given one night to pray, reflect and seek divine inspiration. The next day, they all returned, eager to know the answer.

'It's quite simple really' said the teacher. 'The fact is, that the piece of bread fell exactly as it should have fallen, but the butter had been spread on the wrong side.'

A philosophy professor stood before his class with some items on the table in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picke...

2/26/2013

A philosophy professor stood before his class with some items on the table in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, about 2 inches in diameter.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.He then asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “Yes.”

“Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things – your family, your partner, your health, your children – things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter – like your job, your house, your car.

The sand is everything else. The small stuff.”

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued “there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal.

Take care of the rocks first – the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

Most of the students and youth dread exams. The same demon that returns every 5-6 months. But few people realize the power of the demon... ...

2/21/2013

Most of the students and youth dread exams. The same demon that returns every 5-6 months. But few people realize the power of the demon... This demon is the one who promotes students to new classes, or make students repeat the class, hands over medals for outstanding performance, or perhaps even awards a Transfer Certificate for failing..We'll consider the name of this demon to be "Demon X".

You'll realize that time flows away quickly during exams, just like water gushing out from porous cotton cloths. In this phase, young people tend to concentrate on studies to such an extent that they do not feel the value of time. They want this time to pass away, so that they can finally be independent from their studies. Students demand an Independence day, don't they? For most, the "Independence day" is the last day of the final exams.

But don't forget about Demon X! He returns and inspects each and every answer one has written with blue/black ink on the answer sheets. It's a lot of work on Demon X while the students relax now. This demon now sips coffee while correcting papers... tiresome work, you know.. Days pass by, weeks pass by...

And the lazy students have no more work to do. What work do they have, actually? Studying was fun, but students didn't realize it early, so now they have absolutely no work to do. Indolent students. They run about, watch TV, or lazily browse through the C:\ on their computer in an attempt to find some interesting files in system32 folder of Windows. They all yawn, tired with their current lifestyle. Maybe some get lucky and go somewhere out of his city to explore. Not everyone's lucky, though.

The last week before the report card arrives. Now's the time that students start getting active. Their hearts do some bit of "disco-dance". He wonders whether he can maintain all those expectations he had promised to his near and dear ones. He thinks and thinks. Thinks quite hard.

The day finally arrives. Demon X is done with his final statistics. All the "indolent" students few weeks before are no longer indolent. Demon X hands out the Report cards that are printed with black ink from a printer cartridge to the students. I observe the reaction on their faces. In a class of 53, 3 faces looks like they just got trolled. The remaining 50 faces looks jubilant with their recent success of passing out of a class.

Another session begins. Demon X is gone for now, but after 5 months he'll again return....

Here's the disclaimer: I was an active editor of Wikipedia some months ago. It has a vast community of users - vandals, newbies, trol...

2/06/2013

Here's the disclaimer: I was an active editor of Wikipedia some months ago. It has a vast community of users - vandals, newbies, trolls, admins, and good editors wanting to make Wikipedia the greatest online encyclopedia. Often newbies find the articles which they want to edit are protected with either a semi-protection. Clicking on instructions templates, they are driven off to a page called "Requests for Confirmed Permission". They apply there and hope their request gets accepted.

However, if you're an active Wikipedia user you are sure to notice something if you lazily hover over to RFP/C's page: Most requests are unattended, or they are not granted permission; or some administrator asks them some question which does not get answered. It gets messy at times because of no archiving by the bots- and I mean, it gets real messy. That is not what I want to say, so read on.

In most cases, permission is not granted, right? So why do we keep the page? Okay, there may be just one supporting reason: That legitimate alternate accounts of users need to get approved quick. But applying in RFP/C page takes more time for the request to get approved than if someone personally contacts an administrator. We all have noticed this. It seems very few admins patrol the RFP/C page regularly.

A new user with good intentions to improve the encyclopedia comes; finds the articles which he likes protected, asks for the permission, and it is straightaway denied, with a template message stating "We appreciate your interest to dive right in. Currently 95% articles are not protected, so have fun editing them!". This not only diverts the topic, but also demotivates the editor.

Users are complaining that they are losing good editors from the community over the years. Some say that we should welcome newbies with more politeness, not by "Speedy deletion" templates, and so on. If people want to retain users, users should not be demotivated.

Here's the final conclusion: Close Requests for Permission/Confirmed and instead put something like "Contact any administrator from the list of administrators".

Having a blog can have a lot of advantages for your career life and personal life. However, this doesn't mean that it doesn't ha...

2/01/2013

Having a blog can have a lot of advantages for your career life and personal life. However, this doesn't mean that it doesn't have disadvantages- I mean, when you write on a controversial topic and it gets viral, you can be in a lot of trouble, especially if you are dwelling in a country which censors the Internet. But don't stop! The number of advantages is well over the number of disadvantages! So here we start:

1) Having a blog can improve your writing skills: Perhaps the most important point. Writing a blog dramatically can increase your quality of writing, and over time you can see you are just getting better and better on writing. It can be very helpful in real life- when you have to write a research paper, or do some project work, or you're given an essay to write.

2) You can actually earn from your blog: If you are a good writer and have a good number of posts in your blog, you can actually earn from your blog. For this you need to get noticed: the more the back-links you can establish, the more you can earn. A blogger earns by using a Advertisement program of a company. Till date, Google's AdSense is the most popular plan of this category.

3) You'll get noticed, and your idea may just be a life-changing idea for someone! If you have a decent amount of traffic in your blog, people may actually like your posts and if you just write some killer content or some "How-to's" your idea can help someone. You don't know who is getting helped, but at least that if people stumble over a problem and see your blog article, they will thank you in their minds for writing the article. It's a great pleasure to have helped someone. And, few people are kind enough to leave comments with "Thank you".

4) Employers find it hard to sue a blogger: Actually, this is true. Companies tend to dismiss employees who reveal some black secret about the company. A blogger has a wide audience and if a employer dismisses his employee-blogger it'll be noticed and this may lead to some protest from co-workers and it means a bad reputation for the company. Who wants to earn a bad reputation?

5) Chances of your work getting published elsewhere increases: When you want to publish some work of yours and is tired of hunting for the publishing house that actually accepts your content, your blog may help you. Go and say the publisher: "I am a well-known blogger and my blog is at http://your-blog.com" and watch how your chance of getting published increases.

6) Having fun: The most important point, perhaps. Blogging is nothing but having fun. You can share your stories and experiences with the outside world. It provides a bit of relief if you share your sad story with other people of the world. Blog to have fun.

7) You can actually get famous! As I said, if you write some fresh and killer content, chances of your work being noticed is actually higher than if you copy-paste. Here's the truth for most webmasters: They think copy pasting content can actually get traffic to their website. This concept is actually wrong. Writing unique content drives more traffic than copying and pasting same old, and boring stuff.

8) It's cool to be a blogger. You can brag about your new blog to your friends and say them to check out new stuff. Most people love to read, and if they find your writing good, they can appreciate it in public (like me- my friends call me "The Writing Director" now because of my writing) and that makes you feel good. Who doesn't like recognition actually?

9) And it's good for your health: A recent study says that blogging is actually good for health. It is, definitely. Why don't you check out the link yourself?

10) Lastly, Your imagination widens: Writing a blog increases your thinking and imagination skills. Imagination and thinking in a twisted way is a vital point to concentrate on. A writing is 10 times better if it is written with vivid descriptions of the picture one forms in his mind while writing.